Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Baby backdrop stands, or what I've been doing instead of posting about photography

Earlier this year, I had a light bulb moment. I had this idea for a newborn photography backdrop stand. My husband, who is always interested in a challenge, started thinking about it too. He experimented with tripods, folding chairs, pvc, steel, and tent poles. New incarnations of backdrop stands started accumulating in our living room. The stands kept getting better and better, until we were both really pleased with its form and function. We struggled quite a bit with finding suppliers, which I anticipate will continue, but eventually came up with a plan that seemed workable. Our latest venture, Bright Light Create, was born!

It's a round backdrop stand that you can adjust so that the sides and back are higher than the baby lying on a beanbag. That way no matter what angle you use, there should be smooth background behind him or her. This is awesome because usually I just hang the background on a stand behind the beanbag - all very well until you use a new angle to see the top of her head or toes, or need to change the lighting.

Also with this shape of stand, I can make sure that the blanket is always smooth behind the baby. I've spent way too much time editing blanket wrinkles out in the past, and it's not just me - there are tutorials out there teaching photographers how to do a "blanket fade" in Photoshop to make the background nice and smooth. This should eliminate fussing with editing out background mistakes later on.

There's still tons to do. We're making these ourselves (I have, personally, ground metal in the garage! I haven't welded yet but I sense it's coming) so when we sell more than a couple, we have to spend time in the garage making enough to ship. Eventually hopefully we will find a manufacturing partner and not do it all ourselves.

Here's a couple of links if you're interested - we'd love some likes on our Facebook page, or if you see any mistakes on our webpage we'd love a heads up.

And there's photography going on too! More to come because it's almost fall here...